"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
Shattered screams, shattered dreams, a shattered teen, 213
There's just some things I wish I'd never seen, In my mind an innocent teen
Her battered body sprawled across the tile of the bathroom floor she bled here awhile
Fighting to hold conciousness she's massively beaten, she sleeps duct taped to a matress soaked in her own urine
And it's a sick fuck, sick fuck world
A sick fuck, sick fuck world
A sick fuck, sick fuck world
And her body's shackled to the floor
And her tears fall to the floor
And no two bones were from the same girl
And as if that ain't hard enough to swallow, he took her out back and beat her with a shovel
Her face turned blue and her blood ran red and at the end of this song there'll be another girl dead
He tied her down and cut her up, and threw her in the back of his pickup truck
Finally, now that he's done with her, he took her broken body and dumped it into the river
There's a million places in this small world to hide the fragments of every little girl
BROKEN - Every bone in her face
MAN - God's biggest disgrace
PAIN - You can never erase
SHATTERED - Like an antique vase
LOST - Another life misplaced
SHAME - I don't see it in your face
INNOCENCE - You can never replace
SHACKLED - Get me outa this place
As her head bled she wondered why, one more breath she had to try
He left her for dead. Bled to die. She got away but her tears won't dry
She's an angel with a broken wing and there's nothing I can do, not a goddamn thing
I'll spend the rest of my life emotionally scarred, knowing this shit happens in my own back yard
Near his home they searched the woods and in a shed, executioner hoods
Twenty minutes I had to stare at the blood on the wall thinkin' how it got there
Buried down deep in a pile of manure, panties in the throat of a little dead girl
In the bathroom they found blood stains, and under his trailer, human remains
There's just some things I wish I'd never seen, In my mind an innocent teen
Her battered body sprawled across the tile of the bathroom floor she bled here awhile
Fighting to hold conciousness she's massively beaten, she sleeps duct taped to a matress soaked in her own urine
And it's a sick fuck, sick fuck world
A sick fuck, sick fuck world
A sick fuck, sick fuck world
And her body's shackled to the floor
And her tears fall to the floor
And no two bones were from the same girl
And as if that ain't hard enough to swallow, he took her out back and beat her with a shovel
Her face turned blue and her blood ran red and at the end of this song there'll be another girl dead
He tied her down and cut her up, and threw her in the back of his pickup truck
Finally, now that he's done with her, he took her broken body and dumped it into the river
There's a million places in this small world to hide the fragments of every little girl
BROKEN - Every bone in her face
MAN - God's biggest disgrace
PAIN - You can never erase
SHATTERED - Like an antique vase
LOST - Another life misplaced
SHAME - I don't see it in your face
INNOCENCE - You can never replace
SHACKLED - Get me outa this place
As her head bled she wondered why, one more breath she had to try
He left her for dead. Bled to die. She got away but her tears won't dry
She's an angel with a broken wing and there's nothing I can do, not a goddamn thing
I'll spend the rest of my life emotionally scarred, knowing this shit happens in my own back yard
Near his home they searched the woods and in a shed, executioner hoods
Twenty minutes I had to stare at the blood on the wall thinkin' how it got there
Buried down deep in a pile of manure, panties in the throat of a little dead girl
In the bathroom they found blood stains, and under his trailer, human remains
Lyrics submitted by bengt12
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Fast Car
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